So Microsoft is responding not by improving IE and making it a must-have for users, but by trying to spend the competition into submission...Let's say that Microsoft is successful in getting users to install IE9. That doesn't mean that they're going to stick with it.

It might work to shore up its market share, for a while. But in the long run? Microsoft has dug itself a hole it can't buy its way out of. The only real way for Internet Explorer to reclaim its crown is for Microsoft to compete on features and deliver what users want. I know, that's not Microsoft's first choice of tactic but it's the only one that works in the long run.

Anyone who believes Microsoft is an outlier here is deluding themselves. Many companies - big and small - see the tough work of innovation, product focus, and futurecasting markets as the Big Bad Wolf and try to take the shortcut around the forest. Sadly, it's that shortcut that leads not to *one* wolf, but directly into a ravenous pack of his best pals. And they're more than happy to gobble you up.

It's all too easy to rest when you think your product has hit "feature cap." I don't think that's necessarily what's happening to Microsoft and IE (as if there could be feature caps in the constantly evolving browser space), but there are some telling indicators here from which we can learn. Are any of these sentiments impacting your company's product development?

"Customers will ignore our product flaws if we lure them in with low prices."
"Good marketing and sales is enough to increase our market share...the product will just sell itself."
"Our real customers are enterprise users and they don't care about fancy UIs."

Sometimes, the Big Bad Wolf doesn't live outside our workplace walls. He smiles eagerly from within.